The Arrest and Imprisonment of Bishop Vasyl‟ Velychkovs‟Kyi, 1945-1955

The Arrest and Imprisonment of Bishop Vasyl‟ Velychkovs‟kyi, 1945-1955 by Kseniya Kavats A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of German and Slavic Studies University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright © 2013 by Kseniya Kavats Abstract This thesis concerns Blessed Vasyl‟ Velychkovs‟kyi‟s first arrest and imprisonment in the years 1945-1955. Based on the evidence in two volumes of SBU archival documents which were obtained in 2009 from the Kyiv SBU archives, it tells the story of his arrest, the investigation process, interrogation, trial and sentencing. The thesis provides the reader with a short introduction to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and its clergy in Galicia. It describes how the Soviet government, after it invaded Galicia in 1939, began to persecute the Catholic population, which was unwilling to switch to Russian Orthodoxy. A close examination of the SBU archival documents proves Velychkovs‟kyi‟s innocence and provides evidence of fabricated accusations, forced confessions, the use of physical and psychological abuse. These violations of criminal law and human rights were done in order to compel him to cooperate with the Soviet authorities. Velychkovs‟kyi‟s treatment is an example of what many prisoners who died for their faith suffered. In most cases their life stories will never be told. Table of Contents Introduction: …………………………………………………………….................4 Methodology ……………………………………………………………….4 Sources ……………………………………………………………………..5 Chapter 1: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church – a National Church ……………….7 Biography…………………………………………………………………..21 Chapter 2: House Search and Arrest ……………………………………………….34 Chapter 3: Investigation and Interrogations ………………………………………..56 Chapter 4: Final Indictment and Sentence …………………………………………101 Chapter 5: Death Row and Resentencing ………………………………………….117 Chapter 6: Journey to Rehabilitation ………………………………………………130 Chapter 7: Conclusion ……………………………………………………………..139 Appendix …………………………………………………………………………..141 List of Abbreviations ………………………………………………………………174 Literature Cited……………………………………………………………………..177 3 Introduction 1.1 Methodology This thesis discusses Blessed Vasyl‟ Velychkovs‟kyi‟s first arrest and his imprisonment in the years 1945-1955. Before the arrest he was a Redemptorist Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest and on 27 June 2001 he was recognized by the Catholic Church as a blessed martyr. The study examines his case in the context of the persecution of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. It is based on evidence obtained from the archival holdings of the Defence and Security Services of Ukraine (Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy -- SBU). In Ukraine this governmental organization has inherited the KGB archives. 1 Two volumes deal with different stages of Velychkovs‟kyi‟s first arrest: the interrogation, investigation, accusation, and sentence. The thesis is the first study to make available this previously unknown documentation from the secret police archives. This study examines what happened during the arrest and investigation, what the accusations were, how Velychkovs‟kyi defended himself and how the case was conducted. The secret police documents demonstrate Velychkovs‟kyi‟s innocence under Soviet law and shows the gross violations of human rights that occurred during his arrest, trial and sentencing. It was found that torture was used as a technique of interrogations. Moreover, forced confessions were interpreted as proof of his guilt. On 27 September 2001 a shrine and a museum were established in Velychkovs‟kyi‟s honour in Winnipeg, Canada. This has become a pilgrimage site for Greek Catholics and is 1 KGB -- Committee for State Security (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti) was the security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until the state‟s collapse in 1991. 4 visited regularly by members of the Ukrainian community and many others. Visitors are interested in acquiring knowledge about Velychkovs‟kyi‟s life especially about his arrest and imprisonment. This topic was selected due to the fact that very little is known about the arrest, not only in Canada but also in Ukraine. This thesis is, in fact, the first comprehensive study of Vasyl‟ Velychkovs‟kyi‟s first arrest. The inspiration to write the thesis came from working in the museum, collecting material and documenting Velychkovs‟kyi‟s life. In the course of this study, from 2004 several trips to Ukraine museum‟s with the museum‟s director Father John Sianchuk and its coordinator Mary Jane Kalenchuk. These trips provided additional motivation to research, learn and write about the arrest story. I would like to thank them for helping me to gather materials and supporting me in the process of my writing. 1.2 Sources The two volumes of the first arrest are the primary source materials for this thesis. They were initially stored in the archives of the SBU in the city of Ternopil‟ under the number of 75156 FP and contain 447 pages. The volumes were obtained from the SBU archives in Kyiv, since upon request they were transferred from Ternopil‟ to the main SBU archive in Kyiv. In addition to the two volumes, other archival materials were used, such as Velychkovs‟kyi‟s autobiography, which was written in 1967, his letters of complaint about the arrest, his personal documents, letters, and collected newspaper articles relevant to his life. Interviews conducted from 2003 to 2012 with approximately 100 people who knew Velychkovs‟kyi were also used in this study. All of these materials (copies of the archival sources and original tape recordings of the interviews) are now kept the Blessed Vasyl‟ 5 Velychkovs‟kyi Shrine and Museum Archive, which is located in St. Joseph‟s Ukrainian Catholic Church, 250 Jefferson Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba. The following archives were visited: Archives of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy in Winnipeg, the Redemptorist Archives in Yorkton, the Central State Historical Archive in Kyiv (Tsentral’nyi Derzhavnyi Istorychnyi Arkhiv v Kyievi), the Central National Historical Archive in L‟viv and in Ternopil‟ (Tsentral’nyi Natsional’nyi Istorychnyi Arkhiv Ukrainy v L’vovi i Ternopoli), the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Archives in Kyiv, Ternopil‟, and L‟viv (Arkhiv Sluzhby Bezpeky Ukrainy v Kyievi, Ternopoli i L’vovi). 6 Chapter 1 The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church – a National Church In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Western Ukraine was under Austro- Hungarian rule, which allowed the development of the Ukrainian language and culture, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. During that time the Church through educational programs, and the example set by its clergy and institution, became a vehicle for maintaining a vibrant Ukrainian identity in the predominately Polish urban society. After World War I, Western Ukraine found itself in the newly-formed Polish state. The Polish government began to discriminate against the Ukrainian language and culture and took steps to assimilate Ukrainians. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, under the leadership the highly revered Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts‟kyi, promoted and defended the rights of Ukrainians to express their language and culture. As a result the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church assumed the role of a national church. It provided the country with many Ukrainian political leaders and saw itself as defending the Ukrainian nation and in particular its cultural rights When World War II began, in accordance with the Hitler-Stalin pact, on 17 September 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Western Ukraine and on 22 September the Red Army entered the capital of Eastern Galicia L‟viv. Due to the fact that Western Ukrainians felt tyrannized by Polish rule, the arrival of the Soviets was initially greeted by many as a liberation. However, the goal of the new regime was to Sovietize the territory, to remove opposition to its rule and win over the population. It initially removed the Polish intelligentsia through arrests and deportation, and announced that it would initiate a Ukrainization of education. In the second year, however, it began to arrest the Ukrainian intelligentsia and activists en masse. 7 The Soviet officials did not immediately liquidate the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The government decided to take a slow and well- planned approach, since an instantaneous and open attack could have resulted in massive opposition from the entire population. At that time, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Galicia was headed by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts‟kyi. Besides a L‟viv archeparchy, there were two suffragan eparchies, the Stanislaviv eparchy led by Bishop Hryhorii Khomyshyn and the Peremyshl‟ (Przemysl) led by Bishop Iosafat Kotsylovs‟kyi. In the Western Ukrainian territories occupied by the Red Army there were approximately 2,120 Greek Catholic parishes with about 2,030 priests serving over 3.1 million faithful. The L‟viv Greek Catholic Theological Academy and the theological seminaries in L‟viv, Przemysl, and Stanislaviv had a combined total of 475 students. There were also 29 monasteries with some 140 regular clergy and over 300 monks and 120 convents with over 820 nuns (Bociurkiw 1996, 33). At that time the Greek Catholic Church remained open to the public and priests were allowed to do their pastoral work. However, there was gradual and steady governmental pressure on the Church. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was the major surviving Ukrainian national institution in Galicia. Other Ukrainian religious,

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